Mexican Standoff
by heavens to bikini kill
Summary: Five men. One room. Each and every one staring down the barrel of each other's guns. I never thought it would happen. I also never thought that it would happen with Kaiba Seto pointing his gigantic 9mm at my forehead. (hints of yaoi, SetoxJou)
1. One

Mexican Standoff

by Heavens to Bikini Kill (who can't think of anything clever to say)

**One**

Five men.

One room.

Each and every one staring down the barrel of each other's guns.

I never thought it would happen.

I also never thought that it would happen with Kaiba Seto pointing his gigantic 9mm at my forehead.

My .45 automatic was preoccupied with someone else.

That someone else had his Baretta semiautomatic right at another man's stomach.

The man with the Baretta at his belly held a pump shotgun, aimed right for the final man.

The final man kept his Colt 45 right at Kaiba's heart.

Barely anyone breathed. Kaiba pushed his sunglasses up the bridge of his nose with his middle finger. My gun wasn't going to move anytime soon.

The question was: who was going to shoot first?

Sorry, but I'm not exactly brave enough to kill a man just because everyone found it necessary to whip out their heat.

I'll bet, though, that you're wondering who exactly is busy pointing guns at each other?.

This will be very complicated to explain, so let's trudge through all of the info.

First, the actual people.

Primarily was Kaiba Seto, and I'm sure many of you are already familiar with him. If not, allow me to refresh your memory. CEO of Kaiba Corp, duelist genius, so on and so forth. I'm sure you've heard of him. Within our little gun-toting circle, he was known as Mr. Mars. Not that I intend to call him that, of course.

Next in our lovely lineup lay Nakai Johnny, a man with a surname that was obviously Japanese but a first name that just didn't match. His dad had visited America a few months before he was born and decided that he absolutely loved American culture and everything to do with it. Thus, he gave his first son the most American name he could think of. His birth certificate actually reads Johnny, not John, not Jonathan. His code name was Mr. Jupiter.

This bring us to Karoto Kengo, an unfortunate fellow. All of his life, he had been told that he was incredibly attractive, and yet he only seemed to get any action from men. He is decidedly straight, or so he tries to convince us. It'll be very easy to think of him as Mr. Venus.

Let's move on to Naoki Akira, a man with two first names. He was about as campy as they came, donning ridiculous cowboy hats, tight designer shirts, and heeled boots. Yes, heeled boots. The first day I met him, he tried to tell me how I should style my hair. He exists only through his stereotypical behavior. Better known as Mr. Uranus.

And then there was me. Jonouchi Katsuya, the rag-tag street punk who preferred a good fist fight over shooting any day. You will never call me this, but they branded me Mr. Neptune.

And here we were, five men who for the most part didn't know each other a month ago, suddenly all pointing guns at each other, breathing heavily with a mix of anger and nervousness, each and every one of us determined to make it out of that room alive.

It was only a month ago when we had all met under one man, all thinking that within a month we were all going to be filthy rich in platinum bars.

It's a simple pity that none of us have the ability to tell the future.

A/N: Okay, I deleted "Speed Kills" cos I hated it. This, however, will be shorter than my other fics, and the chapters will be written out of chronological order.


	2. Two

Mexican Standoff

by Heavens to Bikini Kill (who is shamelessly "jocking" Reservoir Dogs)

**Two**

Yes, indeed. It was a month ago when I met these four (technically three) other men.

I was a year out of high school, living quite comfortably alone in my own apartment in Domino's Y District (which is across town from that dump I used to live in with my father). I had a full-time job at a used record shop. It wasn't exactly a career in neurosurgery, but it brought in enough to pay for the rent, the food, and some extra cash to my dad every now and then, when I could afford to do it. (He and I were in the process of healing up our... _relationship_. At least he's not drinking the sauce anymore. Thank you, God.)

The owner, and my boss, was a small, stocky, red-faced American named Bellagio Joe. (He looks at me funny whenever I say his last name first. Sorry, Joe, I'm Japanese.) He didn't like to converse much with his employees, but it was nice being there regardless. I got to listen to music all day, sell music all day, and talk about music all day. It was a dream.

Then one day Joe pulled me out of a very heated debate with another pimply employee over the importance of bridges in songwriting. (That idiot thought that bridges were mere crutches for writers to lean on when they didn't have any other verses to think of! Next he'll be claiming that choruses are annoying, repetitive sacks of uncreativity!) He took me to his back office, a place that I had not seen ever since my first day of work.

"Jonouchi," he grumbled through his cigar smoke (Did I mention that his Japanese needs some work?). "I like you."

"Um... arigato, Bellagio-san?" I was dripping with politeness, thinking that he verbally considering firing me.

"I like you a lot, kid, and I want to do something to show you that."

"Um... okay..." I wasn't about to smart mouth my boss.

He reached into his desk and pulled out a small pad of paper, covered in greasy fingerprints and the like. Why Joe would ever have greasy fingerprints in a record store is beyond me.

He slapped it on his desktop and dug through piles and piles of junk buried underneath more junk, swearing to himself as he looked for a pencil. After finally finding some sort of writing utensil, he scribbled in his terrible Japanese furiously, tearing off the sheet with a flourish, and pushing it to me.

I took a glance. An address.

Joe grinned. "Go there right after you clock out."

What was I gonna do, say no? To my own boss?

The last kid I saw who tried to say no to Joe came out of that ordeal without his job or his self-esteem. The only things spared were his limbs (which he thanked the gods for everyday).

I said I'd be there. And nobody lies to Joe.

_After work._

My old Honda motorbike carried me throughout town to the address Joe had given me. I attempted to find a parking space in the vast, yet cramped lot. I found one, that was about three times the size of my bike, and I prayed that no raging motorist would knock it over.

As I tucked my helmet under my arm, I navigated my way to the actual building, vaguely remembering the way there. When I finally cleared the expanse of air pollutants, I bit my lip to keep from screaming in pure frustration. All of that parking space in front of one _stupid _Denny's? Why do they even _have _a Denny's in Domino, Japan?

I stomped right into the place, the dark cloud over my head obvious enough to everyone in the general area so that they would know enough to back off. I was quickly pointed to the largest booth in the place, filled with Joe, three men I didn't know, and...

Kaiba.

The same man that I hadn't seen or talked to (argued with) in quite some time, yet the last man I really wanted to see. I swear I saw him see me, but he pretended as if he had been concentrating entirely on the man next to him, who was wearing the world's silliest cowboy hat along with a very revealing dress shirt.

Joe looked up, saw me, and beamed, glad that I actually was willing to listen to him outside of work. (Though we all know that his employees are generally petrified of him. If he asked me to run buck naked through downtown Domino in the middle of winter, I would do it.)

I sat next to another man, who had terribly messy hair (okay, messier than mine, at least) and had a patch on his right eye. I had no intention of asking what happened to it. I turned to Joe. "I'm... here." I tried my damnedest to smile, and lost even that when nobody else did.

Joe grinned. "Boys, this is the last man in. You'll call him Mr. Neptune."

Um, what?

Pretty-dressed-boy ignored me completely. "Yeah, yeah, whatever. Look, Venus, how can you possibly say that Cowell Simon is not gay? _Look at him!_ He wears shirts tighter than mine. His hair alone _screams _'blatantly homosexual'! It's _so obvious _-- "

"Uranus!" Joe barked, stopping the rant just in time. "Shut your fuckin trap!"

Mr. Uranus fell silent, and glared at me, as if it was my fault that he couldn't add more warrants to prove his point. He paused for a moment. "You know, if you grew out your bangs a bit more and kept them in your face, I'm sure you'd look nine times hotter."

I wanted to hit the guy, but another well-placed death glare from Joe shut him up good.

Finally getting the silence he need, Joe got to the explanation. "Here's how it works, men. There are five of you. You don't know each other, you aren't to tell anyone your names. Only I know your names, and you all know me. That's the way it's gonna stay -- I don't need you ratting on each other." He paused and grinned. "I know for a fact that none of you got the balls to rat on me."

I never really enjoy correcting Joe, but it was necessary. "Um, Joe, sir?"

"Yeah, Neptune?"

I pointed to Kaiba. "K -- "

"Mr. Mars to you," Joe interrupted.

"Mr. Mars and I already know each other."

"What?" Joe peered at me carefully. "How do you know each other?"

Kaiba snorted and rolled his eyes. "The dog and I went to high school together."

Not too long ago, I would have tackled the guy to the ground, swinging my fists wildly and thoughtlessly, absolutely unafraid of starting a scene. Now, I just stopped caring. I rolled my eyes and sighed, ignoring him completely.

I'm sure my lack of reaction surprised him to an extent, but he went on as if he didn't notice shit. Right.

Joe shook it off. "Whatever, that was a mistake on my part. However, I will be watching you two a bit more closely. If there's a snitch, I'm definitely putting you at the top of my suspects' list."

Now, normally, I would have protested fiercely, not really needing to be on any list of Joe's. But I had no idea what I was supposed to have snitched about. I made this sentiment obvious.

Joe continued. "Look, boys, I know you aren't used to this idea, but trust me. If you stick with me, your asses will go far."

Kaiba paid rapt attention, and I knew why. Kaiba Corp had declared bankruptcy only two months before. Back in high school, I would have thrown a helluva block party for everybody I knew.

Nobody dared to interrupt Joe when he was really into his talking. "In exactly one month, an armored truck detail will be running through Domino, carrying an obscenely huge shipment of platinum for the local jewelers. This is the biggest shipment of the year, so that they'll be set in case of inflation or depreciation of the value. Right now, that platinum is set to be worth quite a lot on the market. Which is precisely why in exactly one month, that platinum is going to be ours."

I nearly shit a brick. I may not know much about crime, but I have enough common sense to know that any obscenely huge shipment of very valuable platinum would be very heavily guarded.

"I picked out each of your because I know you all will have something extremely valuable to add to this thing. Mr. Jupiter -- " he was referring to the one-eyed man, " -- the most violent man I've ever met. You're not afraid to pick a fight when you have to. Mr. Venus -- " a plain man with normal black hair and eyeglasses, " -- extremely skilled in obtaining information. Mr. Uranus -- " of course, he was referring to the campy guy, " -- you just know how to fix any problem, and I've seen you clean up some pretty messy shit. Mr. Mars -- " Kaiba, who I was still ignoring, " -- you still have access to hundreds, if not thousands, of places in Japan, and Mr. Neptune." He paused for a while, obviously trying to think of my valuable skill. "Well, Mr. Neptune, I just like you."

I swear to the gods I heard Mr. Jupiter snicker in contempt. But I wasn't going to pick a fight with a one-eyed man.


	3. Three

Mexican Standoff

by Heavens to Bikini Kill (who is shamelessly "jocking" Reservoir Dogs)

**Three**

"Uranus, you've got no fucking clue what you're talking about."

"Shut your trap, Neptune! What do _you _know about it?"

"I know that everything about your 'Ichi the Killer' analysis is just fucking _wrong_."

That blatantly American Denny's soon became our headquarters. The largest booth in the place was located in the back, and it took us three days and an extra glare from Mr. Jupiter to establish it as ours. We even had a seating standard: me, then Uranus, then Jupiter , then Venus, and then Kaiba, who I only referred to as Mars when I absolutely had to talk to him. (Other than that, I pretty much forgot that he existed.)

My days were spent working at the record shop (where Joe would frequently wink and nod at me, trying to establish to the other employees that we had something _secret _that they'd never know about), talking to Joe about the operation breifly, and then riding my motorbike out to that Denny's for "orientation," in which Joe found it necessary to have us get to know each other better.

"Knowing each other better" consisted of Jupiter smoking and smirking at my fear of him and his one eye, Venus smiling and being his naturally polite self, Kaiba ignoring everybody and everybody ignoring him, and Uranus and myself arguing about pop culture.

Which brought us to this particular point in time.

"No, no, _no, _Uranus. You are wrong. You were _born _wrong. You have _lived _wrong. You will always _be _wrong."

"Yeah, _whatever. _All I know is, you people glorify violence way too much. Gore is the hipster icon in films now."

"Shut _up, _Uranus! Gore is not some hip new fashion! Blood in art can be beautiful. Look at _Kill Bill_, for example."

"That is the worst example _ever. Kill Bill _was Tarantino's announcement to the rest of the world that even at forty years old, he is still a hipster."

"Oh great, are you gonna link to your 'why Tarantino sucks' analysis? You do realize that that one was wrong too, right?"

Conversations like this are not rare.

But out of nowhere came a "heh" from one of the men at the booth.

Mr. Uranus fumed at the mere concept of someone mocking his ranting. He turned to the man next to him. "You got a problem, Mr. Jupiter?"

Mr. Jupiter relished the rest of his cigarette, and mockingly peered at Mr. Uranus through his one white eye. (I still say it's a contact lens, but I've never brought it up with him.) His messy hair moved with him almost threateningly. "No. I don't."

Mr. Uranus sniffed haughtily. "Then that chuckle you let out was pretty unneccessary, wasn't it." A statement, and not a question.

None of us thought it was that big of a deal. Mr. Jupiter did. Without warning or a second thought, a short sword flew out of somewhere in Jupiter's coat and in a split second, we all saw that blade stuck directly next to Uranus's throat. Only half an inch away from death.

Nobody dared to breathe as Jupiter let out another "heh." He peered at his own short sword, and then at Uranus's quivering neck. Uranus himself was entirely pale. Jupiter smirked. "You're right. It was unneccessary."

_Fade out, fade in. _

"Auuuuuuugh!!"

"Oh.. oh my fucking _god!_"

"Eeeeegh! Oh, oh, oh, aaaaaaaaaah!"

"Wait, wait, wait! Calm the fuck _down_!"

"Calm the fuck down?! _Calm the fuck down?! _That cop just got a bullet in my stomach!"

"Look, Kaiba, I realize that you've been shot, and I admit that I don't know what it feels like, and that I really wouldn't want to either, but you can't freak the fuck out on me, 'cuz then I'll start to freak the fuck out on you, and if we both freak the fuck out, then you won't get out of this alive."

Kaiba, who was in the back seat of the Cadillac I borrowed from Uranus, the same Cadillac that was now barrelling down a quiet suburban road in Domino, took a moment to look up from his ugly bullet wound. "I thought you weren't supposed to call me by my real name."

I rolled my eyes as I flipped off an angry honking motorist. "You have fucking lead in your belly and the only thing you care about is the fact that I'm breaking one of Joe's rules."

"Yeah, whatever, but I'm not getting Joe all up in my ass just 'cuz you broke his rule."

I heard a small sniffle. "Kaiba, you're gonna be all right, okay? I swear to every single fucking god, you're gonna be all right."

And because I lost most of my judgement in my well-hidden panic, I reached back and grabbed a hold of Kaiba's hand. He squeezed it so hard I could barely feel my fingers, but that was all right.

Everything just had to be all right, or we were all gonna be dead.


	4. Four

Mexican Standoff

by Heavens to Bikini Kill (who is shamelessly "jocking" Reservoir Dogs)

**Four**

I burst into the old, decrepit apartment that we were all told to meet. Of course, the plan was that Kaiba (AKA Mr. Mars) and I would show up with a rich amount of platinum, but it really didn't work out to our advantage.

To be a bit more accurate, Kaiba had a bullet buried deep into his torso, and looking at the perverse amount of blood seeping from the wound (and the fact that I am no doctor), we both assumed that it was lying somewhere near his stomach.

Bad, bad, _bad _times.

I gasped for air as I weakly dropped Kaiba on the couch (surmising a loud yelp on his part), and I examined the damage.

"Uh... _wow_."

Kaiba looked up at me, tears in his eyes from the excruciating pain. "What do you think?"

"Kaiba," I tried, "seeing as I don't know the first thing about medicine, and I failed anatomy, my opinion shouldn't really matter."

He sighed in pure frustration and threw his head back on the pillow.

I pulled out a cell phone. "Kaiba."

He looked to me once more. "What?"

"I think we've got a rat."

"_What?_"

"I _said_..."

"No, no, no! I heard what you said. It's just... a _rat_?! Are you serious?!"

"Well... yeah. I am."

Kaiba looked like he was going to tear something apart in pure frustration. "I don't... I dont _believe _this! Why in God's name would anyone ever want to rat on _us_?"

_Wash out to flashback._

I had always thought that us five were somewhat close, even if we didn't know each other.

It was a setup made for the ages. Jupiter was the violent one, Venus was the nice one, Mars was the quiet one, Uranus was the cocky one, and I was... well, I was the relatively normal one that kept people from calling the police on us.

The most we ever did at that Denny's was smoke (at least, Jupiter did), drink milkshakes, argue about pop culture, and of course, tell stories. My own life was remarkably boring, so nothing pleased me more than to wrap my lips around an overpriced milkshake and listen to the others tell terrible, crooked tales of loving and fighting, stealing and robbing, and the like.

My absolute favorite was when Venus spoke up for the first time.

"That was pretty funny, Uranus."

Uranus had been so surprised at the concept of Venus speaking that he jumped on the offensive. "Yeah, so? You got something better?"

Venus only smiled serenely, and squeezed his lemon into his water. "Well, I wouldn't call it _better_, I would just say that I myself have had an adventure or two."

I slapped my hand over Uranus's rude mouth. "Really? Let's hear it."

Venus took a sip of his lemon water. "Are you sure? I don't want to bore you."

Did I mention how polite Venus was? We all nodded to encourage him.

He smiled his appreciation and thanks. "All right. It was, if I remember correctly, two years ago...

"I was involved with, unfortunately, a huge drug ring, run by this overly ambitious kid. He seriously told everybody that before he graduated from university, he was going to become the greatest drug lord in Japan. I guess that's a huge thing now... whatever. Anyway, he was really generous with money, hoping to get people on his side. I was broke and living out of my barely-gassed car, so I decided to hop on it.

"The pay was great, to be honest. Within a month, I moved out of my car, and into a nice flat out in the Shibuya district in Tokyo... you guys know that place?"

We nodded.

"Cool. Anyway, I was delivering the death drugs, getting paid, having a good time, right? Well, one night, this wanna be drug lord kid calls me over and gives me the hugest fucking suitcase I had ever seen in my life. He wouldn't tell me what was in it, he only said that I was supposed to take a train out to Domino and deliver the thing to whatever address he gave me.

"I am not gonna lie to you guys, I was fucking _scared_. The suitcase was so fucking heavy, and because I didn't know any better, I just thought it was this killer shipment of drugs. Probably heroin or something. I refused to check it in, you know, to go with the other luggage that everybody else had, 'cuz I heard about how some employees like to be really nosy, and I wasn't going to get killed over missing one bag of heroin.

"So I'm sitting in the lonliest compartment of the train, at the very back, all by myself with the largest suitcase in history, when some cops just stroll in. With a fucking dog. Once again, I was fucking _scared. _Their dogs were supposed to be trained to smell the kind of stuff I was delivering! I was actually ready to just put out my wrists for them, honestly."

We crooked men were simply loving this story.

"So the cops are passing by my seat, and one of them tips his hat at me. I only nodded, ya know, so the cop doesn't get all uppity on me, right? Then it happens. The dog starts sniffing away at the suitcase, and he starts barking at it. I shit a brick. The cop turns, right, and he goes, 'Shut your fucking trap, you damn mutt!' Then he turns to me and goes, 'I'm really sorry, this damn dog has been barking at everybody, even little old ladies for wearing perfume.'"

We laughed, mostly because it was funny, but partly because we felt we had to anyway, but he wasn't done yet.

"But that's not all. I bring the suitcase to Domino like the kid asked, right? And I drag it to the house that he told me to take it to. The guy who answers the door looks fucking shocked, and he tells me to come in so I can get the money. He opens the bag right in front of me, and there I see this badly deformed, badly folded up body, probably one of the wanna be drug lord's enemies or something. Don't ever tell me that the dead look peaceful, this corpse looked as though he went through a hell of pain before he died. I was nearly sick looking at the thing, and the guy just starts laughing. He goes, 'How the fuck did you get through anywhere with that thing?'

"And I answer, 'Malfunctioning dog.'"

_Fade out, fade in._

I spent what felt like hours trying to comfort Kaiba, and he only squirmed and screamed in reply. After a while, he seemed to accept his injury, and his anguish simmered down to a quiet moan.

The door burst open, and in came Jupiter and Venus.

The latter took one good look at Kaiba. "What the fuck happened over there?"

I looked to him, noting the fear in his eyes. Jupiter was indifferent. And Kaiba was just in pain. "Gentlemen, I believe we have a rat on our hands."


	5. Five

Mexican Standoff

by Heavens to Bikini Kill (who is shamelessly "jocking" Reservoir Dogs)

**Five**

The room was deathly silent. Jupiter's cigarette fell out of his mouth and to the unfinished wooden floor. Venus's toe crushed it for him.

The polite one gazed at me through his bangs. "A... rat?"

"Unbe-fucking-lievable," Jupiter growled as he tapped out another stick. "A rat. A fucking rat."

Kaiba looked up from his bullet wound. "Where's Uranus?"

"Dead." Jupiter nodded at the injured former CEO. "What happened to Mars?"

"Shot. By a cop."

Jupiter murmured something incomprehensible, and walked off to the kitchen to snort a line of whatever makes him feel good when he's in danger of going back to prison.

Venus clucked softly and turned back to me. "Where's Bellagio-san?"

I shrugged. "He wouldn't say. All he said was that he'd get here."

Venus clucked once more as he looked over Kaiba. "Uranus... for all we know, he could have been a really good man."

"For all we know?" I had a problem with his wording.

'We don't really _know_ him. They say you know a man by his name, and we don't have a clue about each other's."

He looked pointedly at me, and I turned my head to Kaiba. There was no way I was going to tell him my name. For all I knew, he was the rat. "What are we gonna do about Mars?"

"I don't know, but I know that we are _not _going to a hospital."

My jaw dropped to the filthy floor. "Are you kidding? How long do you think he's gonna live with that bullet in him?"

Venus shook his head. "I'm sorry about that, but there is no way I'm going to jail for him." His face turned pale. "Oh my fucking god, he's dead."

I turned to see Kaiba out cold. I knelt my head to his lips, and heard slow, separated gasps. "No. He just passed out." I got back to my feet and faced Venus. "And what do you mean you're 'not going to jail' for him?"

"I mean exactly what I said, Mr. Neptune. I have no interest in going to jail."

"And what about Mars? You're fine with letting him die like this?"

Venus paused for a moment, reached into his blazer's breast pocket, and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. He tapped a stick out and lit up. Inhale. Exhale. I stared. "Do you really think that I want him to die?"

"That's not the -- "

He cut me off. "Answer the question, please."

My eyes fell to the floor. "No. I don't think you want him to die."

"Then you understand that what I am saying is very difficult for me, yes?"

"Yes."

"My first interest, naturally, is self-preservation. I am sorry if we do not share that interest, but I am not going to prison for anyone. Especially for somebody I don't even know. Understand?"

I couldn't bear to look at the coward. "Yeah, yeah, _nan de mo ii desu._" (_Whatever_.)

I could feel Venus's smile at my back. "You act as if you're in love with the guy... you do know him personally..."

"Mars and I go back," I snapped, "Not in a good way."

"Rivals?"

"Enemies. Bitter enemies."

"_Ah so. _Just looking out for a business partner, _ne_?"

"Yeah. That's it."

I looked at Kaiba once more. He was still down for the count.

Damn it.

_I don't feel too good._

(A/N: Guess who's back. Back again? Yeah, it's short. Get over it.)


End file.
